Tessa Altman
Tessa Altman is one of the characters on the show Suburgatory. Her father is George Altman. She is an unfashionably dressed, highly intellectual, rather cynical and sarcastic teenage girl who is portrayed as an icon of sanity in a rather insane upper middle class suburban town. She is played by actress Jane Levy. Background Tessa Altman was born to George Altman and a currently unnamed mother. Shortly after Tessa Altman was born, her mother dropped out of her life and she was left under care of her father, George, who was providing for Tessa with his job as an architect. They both lived in New York, which George later found as an unstable enviroment to raise his daughter. For example, once when Tessa and George went Trick-or-Treating, the house turned out to be the scene of a murder, and before the two could receive their candy, the cops moved a corpse from the house (flashback shown in "Halloween"). Then, if that wasn't enough for George to be convinced New York was not a child-safe place, George performed an unauthorized search-and-check, during which he discovered an unopened box of condoms in the drawer of her nightstand, which Tessa was stashing for a friendc. All this stated to happen prior to "Pilot". She was very ordinairy New York teenager until George "bubble-wrapped" her life and shipped her off to live very clean-cut suburbs located in the town of Chatswin. When Tessa moves into her new "Circus Peanut"-colored home, she imagines her new suburban life as The Stepford Wives, where she encounters big-haired, synthetic-breasted Franken-mothers with their Sugar Free Red Bull-chugging children and the over-manicured lawns. She even states that some people find New York intimidating, though she states that the Suburbanites are the type she could picture feasting upon their very own children. She uses her dry wit and sarcastic sense of humor to defeat whatever she comes across, rather's either her next-door suburban moms Dallas Royce and Sheila Shay or their daughters. Either Dallas's daughter - the self-absorbed, vacuous valley girl, Dalia (who is convinced Tessa is a lesbian because of the grungy clothing and combat boots she wears) who is the Malibu Barbie type, only with more mascara and less emotion. Though, there is the rather socially awkward Lisa Shay (who Tessa is showned to have befriended, as shown at the end of "Pilot" and throughout the rest of the series). She isn't interested in dating and/or boys, though prior to having an intimate relationship with her jock suburban neighbor, Ryan Shay, who randomly dances suggestively and calls his abs "the gun show", Tessa revealed her first kiss occured underneath a ladder. She also grabbed a nerdy suburban Jew named Evan by the collar and kissed him, trying to form feelings for somebody other than Ryan. She is fifteen-years-old, and is set to turn sixteen in "Sweet Sixteen". Season One In "Pilot," Tessa is forced to move from Manhattan to a suburban town because of her father's dissaprovement over finding an unopened pack of condoms in her bedroom drawer. She goes to Chatswin High School the day after she moves and valley girl Dalia Royce is assigned Tessa's "buddy", which Dalia noted doesn't mean they are friends. Throughout Tessa's tour of the school, Dalia is texting on her cell phone while Tessa throws out sarcastic comments, though Dalia hardly notices. Later, Tessa admits her favorite part of the whole tour was the handicappable stall in the girl's room. While reading and eating her lunch in the stall, she overhears Dalia and several other girls make fun of Lisa Shay, her new neighbor. Once Dalia and her gang exit the bathroom, Tessa tries to comfort the then weeping Lisa, who later yells at Tessa ("Get away from me, you lesbian!") and runs from the bathroom. Later, when she is walking home from school, she admits how scared she is of the suburbs and is forced to go to the mall with Dalia and Dallas Royce. In the dressing room, her and Dalia try on matching outfits and Dallas walks into the room. After Dalia exits the dressing room, Dallas zips down Tessa's vest and starts to critique Tessa's sports bra, deeming it ugly. Later when Tessa returns from the mall that night and her father is having dinner with Noah Werner, she throws together an outfit consisting of the articles of clothing George purchased for her at the boutique the Royces took her to (called "The Mall Skank" by Tessa). She threatens her father, saying she was not eating the pot roast Sheila Shay made them, instead just drinking a Sugar Free Redbull. The next morning, her and her father communicate their feelings by reading reference books with agressive titles and tell each other how they feel about the suburbs. Later, Lisa Shay comes to take her mother's pot, in which Tessa confuses the pot that Sheila's pot roast was prepared in for marijuana. Lisa apologizes for her outburst in the girl's room the other day and sadly admits that she is related to Sheila and her older jock brother, Ray Shay (later fully introduced in "The Barbeque"). Later, Tessa is gifted with a formal bra from Dallas Royce. In the second episode of season 1, "The Barbeque", Tessa explains that her favorite part of the suburbs since moving is sleeping. Later, it shows her and George running to hide from Sheila Shay to avoid to being invited to dinner after Sheila waters her lawn. George's jacket gets caught in the back door and Sheila invites them to dinner and George is guilt trapped into saying yes. In her biology class, her and the students study the Gentoo Penguin, when removed natural habitat it will be exposed to infectious disease. That night, before they go to dinner with the Shay family, they prepare a code word, "pickles", if they must exit. They go to dinner and Lisa's elder brother, Ryan Shay has his group of jock buddies, including Dalia Royce at his house. Ryan leads his friends to the basement rec room and Sheila makes Lisa and Tessa follow. While Tessa is playing pinball, Ryan and his friends are in a match of 'Truth or Dare'. Dalia dares Ryan to "kiss the lesbian". Ryan thinks Dalia is talking about his sister, but Dalia tells him she means Tessa. Tessa tries to get out of playing, though her and Ryan kiss passionately against the pinball machine, Ryan informing Tessa he couldn't back out of Dalia's dare. After their kiss, Tessa runs upstairs and yells "Pickles!" many times while waving her arms frantically. Tessa later finds herself strangely attracted to Ryan, the exact opposite. She watches Ryan sensually wash his car out her bedroom window and Lisa confronts her that day at school, saying that it was sickening. Tessa admitts to herself she was sick for falling head over heels for Ryan. To try wiggling out of her crush, she pulls aside a nerdy self-neurotic Jewish boy named Evan, pushes him against the vending machine and pressures him into a French kiss, though Tessa says she felt nothing. Later, Ryan invites Tessa to make out with him under the bleachers. While the two kiss, she pressures him into answering questions so she can see if there is anything more to Ryan than his good looks. As it turns out, there wasn't. That night, George tries to get Tessa to talk about her encounter with Ryan, as Dallas Royce informed him that Dalia told her Tessa and Ryan went to first base. George was forced into throwing a barbeque by his friend Noah and Dallas Royce after being told by the Shays, all them saying that a barbeque is important to have when a new family moves in or else the family will be deemed univiting. Later, at the Altman's barbeque Tessa and Ryan kiss in the laundry room and she tells him that they have to go their seperate ways. Later, her and her father share barbeque on the back porch together. In "The Chatterer", it is revealed Tessa's neighbor Sheila Shay has overstepped her bounds, as she mothers Tessa completely - wheter she is driving Tessa to school, packing her lunch or setting up a college fund. This intimidates George, and he later joins the PTA to get back at Sheila. Later, Tessa is forced to choose a new elective by Mr. Wolf for her third period after he busted her spending her third period reading the newspaper in the handicap stall. Her choices are to either be a member of the drama club along with Kenzie, Kaitlin and Kimantha; attend a "flat-ironing" course. She decides she wants to be a member of something "unpopular and poorly supervised". She becomes a writer for the school paper, The Chatswin Chronicle along with diversity student Malik. Malik is not happy that his school newspaper is not as big of a success as he hopes, as it is used to sturdy table legs, wipe up student's vomit and as a place for the biology lab's hamster to soil on. Tessa becomes a writer for the school newspaper and with help from Dalia, who knows all the gossip that circulates the halls of Chatswin High School, Tessa revamps the school newspaper into the style of a gossip tablioid. When the first edition of the make-overed school paper is released, all students are clutching their own copy and reading the gossip aloud. Tessa is horrified to learn that Mailik has been turned into a gossip addict, which supplied him with mad popularity. Malik's newfound popularity clearly floats over his head. Later in the episode, the success of the new and improved school newspaper (titled The Chatswin Chatterer) effects Tessa, as she cannot even enter the bathroom without girls offering her snacks and disinfecting the stall for her. When she enters the handicapped stall, Malik is waiting for her with a photo Dalia took of Lisa Shay sucking her thumb in the library. Tessa insists Malik does not publish it and then Lisa comes in with a petition stating she wants the old newspaper back. Her petition only had two signatures - both of them hers, but later, both Tessa and Malik sign it. In "Don't Call Me Shirley", a crime occurs in Chatswin, as infered by Tessa who is woken up at 4 P.M. to police sirens. Tessa is itching to discover what type of crime happened, and she thinks of all the gruesome possibilities- a burglary, a murder...because after all, sirens was not a normalcy of the suburbs. Once at the scene of the crime, Tessa is disappointed to learn that the issue is indeed a robbery, just not the kind she was expecting. The crime happens to be the theft of Sheila Shay's collection of antique Shirley Temple dolls. Tessa cannot help but be amused, though that day at school, Dalia Royce makes an announcement in front of the entire student body in the cafeteria. During her announcement, she frames Tessa for stealing Sheila's dolls (without mentioning her name, rather refering her to somebody who had recently moved from "New York, New York...New York") which leads her to being the primary suspect. Later, Dallas and Dalia crash the Altman's home, the two afraid of being burglarized themselves. Tessa is forced to bunk with Dalia. In the middle of the night, Tessa wakes up to strange sounds. She grabs her baseball bat and heads downstairs. Once downstairs she bumps into her dad, who also has a baseball bat. They’re both frightened and in search of where the noise could be coming from. They realize the sounds are coming from the laundry room. Ready to attack, they swing the door open and find Dallas sitting in the dark, guiltily eating a sandwich, her feeling guilty for barging into the Altman's house. The next morning, after Dalia and Tessa promise not to speak anything about the sleepover at school, they walk into the kitchen to find George and Dallas looking cozy in their robes, talking and giggling about the various activities and festivals they can take the girls to together. The girls realize that they have to come up with a plan to stop their parents before they get any closer. Later, Tessa forms a plan with Dalia, which involves Dalia announcing one again that Tessa is the theif of "the crazy lady's" dolls. Mr. Wolf overhears and calls George to the school and during George and Tessa's meeting with Mr. Wolf, Tessa admits she called attention about her being the so-called theif so it would be a way for George to take her back to New York. Meanwhile, Sheila Shay is a hot mess - she makes (and unfortunately wears) Missing T-shirts, showcasing a photo of her dolls and a phone number to call if they are found. Sheila also admits that she spends her week nights ironing and folding her missing doll's clothing, which leads Lisa to admit she is the doll theif, her stealing them toget back at Sheila for years of substance abuse. In "Halloween", the episode starts with the Altman’s excited about celebrating their first Halloween in the suburbs. They’re bringing out fake gore, guillotines, over-sized spiders covering half the front of their house, and tombstones. Tessa explains that in the city, rather than fake decorations, they had to worry about real murder scenes. While Tessa and George are excited for the holiday, their suburban neighbors are another story. As two moms jog by, they stare in awe at the monstrosity that has become the Altman house. When Noah Werner comes to visit, he tells George that any home decorating for the holidays must first be approved by the community board, as to not ruin the aesthetics of the neighborhood. After all, Chatswin always wins the award for “most uniform houses.” The friend starts trying to pack up all the decorations to put them back in the garage so that the Altman’s don’t get fined. Tessa decides that since she can’t express her feelings toward Halloween in home decorations, she must find the perfect costume. In her search through her closet, she finds a dusty old box on the top shelf with the words, “Misty’s Hair Accessories.” Upon opening the box and finding a hair “Bump-It,” an epiphany strikes— she knows what she must become for Halloween. In the next scene we see her in her costume, “a tacky ass suburban girl.” Tessa dons a bright blue velour sweat suit and adds the word "redonk" to her vocabulary, which brings back horrible memories for students at Chatswin High School. Once Tessa meets up with Lisa, the creepy things start happening. Lisa instantly notices Tessa’s hair and begins to tell her about Misty. Misty is the girl that used to live in the house before the Altman’s moved in. Misty used to “bump-it,” wear sweat suits with a pair of high heels and say "redonk". When Tessa can’t get one of the lockers open, Lisa tells explains that it’s because it was Misty’s old locker. Lisa starts to explain Misty's fate until she cuts herself off and changes the topic, clearly not wanting to speak of the subject. In the hallway, Mr. Wolfe doesn’t think Tessa’s “costume” is funny. He tells her she put it together in bad taste and sends her into his office— the place where he used to send Misty. Mr. Wolf reams out Tessa, saying he expected better from her than to impersonate a former student. Especially a decased student. Tessa learns she’s been living in Misty's former bedroom. Later, Tessa approaches Lisa in the bathroom, asking why Lisa never told her that she’s been living in a dead girl’s room. Since Lisa can’t use the restroom with Tessa standing in front of her stall and Tessa won’t move until she tells her the story of Misty, Lisa starts spilling details. It turns out that Misty was a nerdy and preppy newbie to Chatswin High. Misty became close friends with Lisa, as both of them shared a love of baggy sweaters. Later, Misty shed her glasses and had Lasik eye surgery performed on her and she later moved onto Dalia's clique with Kaitlin, Kenzie and Kimantha. Lisa tells Tessa she was so hurt by the change in Misty that she wished she would just go away. Then she did. With Tessa dressing like her, using her words and old locker, Lisa confesses that she’s pretty freaked out. She’s convinced that Misty’s spirit is trying to take over Tessa’s body. Later that night, Tessa can’t sleep because she’s freaked out by the thought of sleeping in a the bedroom of a decased teenage girl. In the meantime, Tessa continues to try and get down to the truth behind the Misty story. She goes to the Dalia and her clan of cool kids to ask questions. Once Tessa gets home, she notices candles all over the place and Lisa pops out of nowhere holding a bible with Malik dressed as Run DMC. Lisa tells Tessa they are there to perform an exorcism on her, as she was clearly possesed by Misty's spirit. In the middle of the exorcism, the door bell rings and someone knocks on the door— it’s Misty. As it turns out, Misty was never dead, she just moved to New Jersey. When her parent’s said she went to a better place, they were talking about a remedial school. When the guidance counselor said she was dead, he really did kill her off of school records when she failed the standardized testing, as to not bring down the school’s grade point average. Misty had only returned from Paramus to Chatswin to trick-or-treat (and steal a nail polish from Tessa’s room). By the end of the episode, Tessa admits that Halloween in the suburbs had started to grow on her and George, after getting knocked out by Dallas’ husband when he came home and thought George was a burglar, thanks Dallas for giving him permission to have a scary Halloween. The house is decked out in all things gory and Tessa and George scare the little kids in the neighborhood all through Halloween night. In "Charity Case", Tessa witnesses how dimwitted and wasteful Suburbanites really are. They water their lawns while it pours down rain, they dump their untouched cafeteria lunches into the garbage can - opting for breath mints instead. One day, Tessa is having a mandatory meeting with Mr. Wolf, ensuring him she has made plently of peers and no unwanted pregnantcies have taken occurance. Mr. Wolf's microwave beeps and he removes his soup from it to see that it is chicken and rice when he clearly ''asked for chicken and stars - so he dumps the entire bown into the trash. Tessa tries to inform him about how much the people of Suburbia waste when all the uneaten meals they can altogether could feed the needy. She suggests that Chatswin High holds a fundraiser for a needy cause, to which Mr. Wolf agrees to, only if Tessa makes a presentation. The next day, Tessa presents an animated short film to the students of Chatswin High about food wastefullness. Mr. Wolf calls for an unnessicary questions/comments window. The first student to raise her is is none other than Dalia. Tessa calls on her, and Dalia tells the entire student body about the "endless suffering" she had witnessed while vacationing in Orlando - the frizzy-haired, oily skinned locals. This leads into a rally, and Mr. Wolf finally announces that Chatswin High will hold a fundraiser to buy a stock of clarisonic facial brushes that they can donate to Florida so they can imporove the complexion of their locals. Later at the first gathering of volunteers for Chatswin’s first "Semi-Annual Florida Clarisonic Face Brush Fundraiser", Tessa gets frustrated and states to Mr. Wolf that the oily-skinned are not a needy cause. He agrees, but to her dismay, says that they should not only be giving clarisonic face brushes to the ones with oily skin - they should also help out the dry-skinned Flordia locals as well. She storms from the multi-purpose room where the meeting was being held and runs into Dallas Royce, who has two platters of pre-packaged deli meat and cheese. She tells Tessa that in her time, she has invented at least one hundred chairties in her time, along with her brother-in-law, an air matress salesman. Her charities included "Air beds for the homeless" and "Air beds for the elderly". Next, Dallas decides that the slices of deli meat are too thin, so she cans both trays. Tessa fishes them from the garbage. Later, Tessa is glum that her classmates do not understand the true meaning of charity work and George's advice leads her into introducting her classmates to her friend, Gladys. Gladys is a homeless drag queen who lives out of a shopping cart filled with trash bags containing all of his belongings on Tessa's old block in Manhattan. She thinks this is the best tool to help the suburbans understand the hunger epidemic. Tessa makes a speech about the fact that not all people can afford to get their teeth whitened and spend money trying to fix their oily skin— there are hungry people a lot closer than Florida. At Chatswin High, everyone mixes up Tessa’s real message and decides that she is the person they should be worried about. They saw Tessa take the trays of deli meat out of the garbage can after Dallas threw it away and they are concerned about her friendships with transsexual bums. Once word gets around that George made a big deal about the cost for his crown, this doesn’t help Tessa’s case much. The Altman’s are soon known as the charity case of the neighborhood. Later that night, neighbors bring by tons of useless appliances and gadgets from the Sky Mall to donate to the Altmans. Though Tessa and George are upset at first, Tessa comes up with the brilliant plan to donate the items to Gladys on West 14th Street. In the last scene, Tessa and George are in their pajamas, sipping smoothies they made with their new juicer. George quickly falls asleep on the couch while Tessa opens up a letter from Gladys, printed on his stationary. In the letter, Gladys thanks Tessa for the set of light-up bocce balls she gifted him. Though, he says he soon sold the bocce balls and countertop appliances Tessa donated to him and used the money to purchase a pop-up tent and a pre-paid cell phone (so if "you ever need a place to stay in the city, girl, call me!") In "Sweet Sixteen", Personality Because Tessa Altman was raised in the melting pot of New York City, absorbing all the life lessons to be gleaned from its tired, huddled masses and countless one-man shows, she started to channel them into a wry, wiser-than-her-fifteen-years take on the world. Tessa posseses sarcastic, cynical traits, which help her quip very witty comments. She is has a sense of dry wit and humor. Tessa appears to be rather scornful to her fellow classmates and her perfect suburban neighbors with their touch-me-not homes and picket fences, also taking a very strong dislike in the New York mothers. She is highly intellegent and canny, which makes her succeed in most of her endeavors, except math and sometimes outside of school. Apparently, as said by George, she has a genuine interest in Felini black-and-white subtilte films. She also enjoys reading, though she dislikes the idea of girly items, finding a very distasteful hating of the kitten clock and patterned walls in her new bedroom. She also was grossed out with Dallas Royce's unnessicary lecture on bras in the dressing room at the mall, a place Tessa strongly dislikes. Though, Tessa was very thankful of Dallas when she received her bra. Family Tessa is the daughter of George Altman, an architect and the identity of her mother is not revealed. All that is know about ''Mrs. ''Altman is that she was "gone quickly after the umbilical cord was cut", as said by Tessa at the beginning of the episode after explaining her strong hate of New York ''and ''Suburban mothers. Also, Sheila yells to George from outside while she is watering her lawn to tell his wife she will be dropping off a pot roast. George replies, in holler, that he doesn't have a wife and apparently the news travels quick, as later that day, Dallas Royce knows. ("Pilot") Later, Fred, Sheila Shay's husband questions George about his wife. George denies comment, though Sheila heckles him into admitting that him and Mrs. Altman split after 3 years. Fred also called it "George's failed marriage". Later, when George and Tessa are eating barbeque on the back porch, George said that he used to know a "beautiful woman who he could not stand" and Tessa said she loves hearing stories about her deceased mother. ("The Barbeque") Relationships George Altman (father-daughter relationship) Physical Appearance and Personal Style/Decor She has mousy, shoulder-lenght light auburn hair with green eyes. She is very slender and fair-skinned. She wears simple-colored attire, normally with brown, green, gray, pale orange or black. She sometimes wears dresses over T-shirts with leggings. She usually wears boots with her outfits Two times has she flip-flopped her normal dress code, both times when Tessa was impersonating a suburban girl - once as "The Mall Skank", her wearing a mini-skirt and a top that reveals her midriff, accesorized with high-heeled shoes and a faux hair weave to match her natural hair color ("Pilot"). The second time was in "Halloween" when she dressed as "departed" suburban girl Misty - an outfit consisting of Misty's signature bright blue velour sweat suit finished off with high-heels, a leather handbag on her forearm, coffee drink and of course, Tessa also wore Misty's old hair Bump-It. Also, Tessa was forced to try on a tacky pink number that matched Dalia's ("Pilot"). She dislikes "girly" decorations, as she took disgust in the tacky wallpaper hung up on the walls of her new bedroom, as well as the equally tacky kitten-shaped wall clock. Quotes '''Main Article': ''Tessa Altman's Quotations'' Gallery Tessa Altman 1.jpg Trivia Category:Characters